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BBC producer deletes blog where he admits political manipulation before PM Questions

A BBC producer has admitted in a BBC blog – now deleted – that Andrew Neil, Laura Kuenssberg and himself manipulated the news to negatively impact Jeremy Corbyn during Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday.

In the blog, the producer – Andrew Alexander – openly admits the BBC team were not just reporting the day’s news but trying to influence it:

“this was a story where we could make an impact”

Alexander also admits the BBC team were fully aware that their actions would influence events:

“we knew his resignation just before PMQs would be a dramatic moment with big political impact”

And expresses pleasure in seeing the PM use their actions to attack the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn:

“we took a moment to watch the story ripple out across news outlets and social media. Within minutes we heard David Cameron refer to the resignation during his exchanges with Jeremy Corbyn”

Here’s the full article below – a cached version can still for the moment be seen on Google.

Resignation! Making the news on the Daily Politics

Thursday 07 January 2016, 15:17

Andrew Alexander is an output editor for the Daily and Sunday Politics series

Wednesday is always an important day for the Daily Politics because we carry Prime Minister’s Questions live, which brings with it our biggest audience of the week and, we hope, a decent story.

As I arrived at Millbank at 7am it was clear that Jeremy Corbyn’s cabinet reshuffle, which had ended before 1am, was going to dominate at Westminster.

When the programme editor phoned in we agreed that in addition to covering other major stories, including the junior doctors’ strike, fallout from the reshuffle was likely to continue throughout the morning and this was a story where we could make an impact.

When the producers arrived at 8am they began putting out texts and calls to Labour MPs we thought were likely to react strongly to the sacking of several shadow ministers for “disloyalty”.

Just before 9am we learned from Laura Kuenssberg, who comes on the programme every Wednesday ahead of PMQs, that she was speaking to one junior shadow minister who was considering resigning. I wonder, mused our presenter Andrew Neil, if they would consider doing it live on the show?

The question was put to Laura, who thought it was a great idea. Considering it a long shot we carried on the usual work of building the show, and continued speaking to Labour MPs who were confirming reports of a string of shadow ministers considering their positions.

Within the hour we heard that Laura had sealed the deal: the shadow foreign minister Stephen Doughty would resign live in the studio.

Although he himself would probably acknowledge he isn’t a household name, we knew his resignation just before PMQs would be a dramatic moment with big political impact. We took the presenters aside to brief them on the interview while our colleagues on the news desk arranged for a camera crew to film him and Laura arriving in the studio for the TV news packages.

There’s always a bit of nervous energy in the studio and the gallery just before we go on air at 11.30am, but I’d say it was a notch higher than usual this week. By this point we weren’t worried about someone else getting the story as we had Stephen Doughty safely in our green room. Our only fear was that he might pull his punches when the moment came.

When it did, with about five minutes to go before PMQs, he was precise, measured and quietly devastating – telling Andrew that “I’ve just written to Jeremy Corbyn to resign from the front bench” and accusing Mr Corbyn’s team of “unpleasant operations” and telling “lies”.

As Andrew Neil handed from the studio to the Commons chamber we took a moment to watch the story ripple out across news outlets and social media. Within minutes we heard David Cameron refer to the resignation during his exchanges with Jeremy Corbyn.

During our regular debrief after coming off air at 1pm we agreed our job is always most enjoyable when a big story is breaking – but even more so when it’s breaking on the programme.

60 thoughts on “BBC producer deletes blog where he admits political manipulation before PM Questions”

Why do you think wealthy people subsidise newspapers and set 24/7 news stations and do deal with governments and Opposition politicians. Reports are people who sued to work for local newspapers Journalists are often recruited by security and intelligence services do you know

Bbc news in general is running scared of the Tory party and is treating Cameron ,Osborne etc with kid gloves whilst whilst going to extreme lengths to slaughter labour and in particular Corbyn . Just consider the almost embarrassing failure to probe letwins racism, Osbornes deficit/economic disaster, Camerons lies,deceit cronyism , housing scandal, human rights suppression,Saudi Arabia , NHS ,welfare cuts and DWP cuts etc. etc.
Not much to go with there then ?
Bbc needs to stop being a mouthpiece and apologist for this governments radical right wing agenda and realise the only way to save itself is to challenge and not meekly comply to seek favour and hope for scraps from the table.

agreed but the opposition to a genuine Official opposition has deeper and wider roots covering Tony Blair and John major opposed to a European exit as they were to an Independent Scotland and other nations as well as international corporations who see the mergences of a socialist Labour Party as a serious threat to international capitalism

The BBC News team think they are clever but because of there Sick Bias and Propaganda costing over 3.5 Million Lives. Every member of the BBC News will pay the Ultimate price for their Lies and Propaganda and will be denied life in the Tree of ever lasting life and will burn in the Fires of Hell. This is Christ’s Promise for all those who aided the Criminal Elite commit Genaside and Mass-Murder.

I don’t see the problem here. They were within their rights to be excited about an on-air resignation – that’s just a good media coup. The timing was then largely incidental – they air when they air and this story was massively relevant to PMQs. Maybe the blogger is a bit smug about the impact of all of this, but smugness within the BBC is as much a part of the charter as anything else

Totally legitimate. Timing exclusives happens all the time to maximise the effect. Newspapers regularly put big satories in last editions and even on 24/7 news on the web attempts are made to time exclusives in a way that gives them maximum effect. You are sniping at the BBC for no reason. One day it will die of a million cuts – financially and metaphorically – and you all learn what you have done. The real worry is that the BBC has lost so much confieence under this remorseless attack that it has taken the blog down.

The BBC is funded massively by our taxes as well as the licence fee, they are given huge amounts of money by the sitting government. This creates a situation where they (the fat cat bosses) know, that if they do not comply meekly with whoever is in power at that time, they may see cut backs, and that would affect the fat cat bosses salaries and bonuses, and THAT is what it is all about, nothing about morality, integrity, honour or truth, just MONEY.

“The real worry is that the BBC has lost so much confieence under this remorseless attack that it has taken the blog down.”

Absolutely – that’s the mistake the BBC have made here. The rest is how news works. Presumably people would be less concerned if this was a blog reporting on an ITN news story, or Sky News – in which case, they wish to restrict the BBC’s news activities so as not to be able to act competitively or (to use a less loaded word) to act in a way expected (and indeed necessary) of a successful news broadcaster.

The BBC is not obliged to report only items that have absolutely no political weight (for or against the left or right), or to report stories in such a way that they can have no impact either way on real-time political process or public consumption/perception of politics as it happens. The obligation is ‘simply’ to ensure that reporting is even and unbiased when weighed in its entirety.

The regime, the assholes, etc etc etc, control, Laura needs the sack!!!! i had a certain amount of decency to her, she`s just a Capatalist Mmmmm woin`t say the word….Corbyn is to much for these creeps. They can`t see the truth or they are obviously being paid off for it! Slime personified!

Disgusting…. just another example where the BBC news service let’s down the rest of the organisation. It is time for it to go. The BBC is no longer fit to be our public service broadcaster. In Scotland we’ve known that for a while.

With Corbyn an electoral lame duck (like Kinnock & Foot) is it any wonder that those naturally left-leaning within the BBC want him undermined before the next election – esp. given that that is, ultimately, the intention among the movers & shakers within the Labour Party itself – including many who voted him in…..?

As was being talked about within the Party before the leadership contest, there is a long game being played here:
1) Corbyn attracts attention – and elements of the disaffected, the naive, the “hopeful for change”, who then stay with the Party.
2) Corbyn is dropped shortly before the next election and a more “user friendly” face put in at the top.
3) A proportion of those drawn to Labour by him stick with it in the Ballot Box out of a sense of hope.

Principles are one thing, but his (alas, or otherwise) don’t win general elections. Corbyn remaining leader represents the best hope the Tories have, next time around……

I do wish that those who want to see Corbyn removed would just reflect on the fact that those who are attacking him in the Labour Party are the same people who lost two general elections with their Tory lite policies.

I for one want to see a socialist party challenge the horrors of this callous Tory government. By 2020 people will be crying out for a more caring politics and Jeremy is the only one that can deliver this.

Good work. I have to say I actually value the BBC as an institution with a capacity for enabling positive social change and cohesion and I would hate to see it go. It’s clearly aligning itself with the Conservatives in a bid to try and keep them sweet and consequently it’s news and politics output has become farcical under James Hardy and Rona Fairhead, especially with Nick Robinson on the Today and Laura Kuenssberg at Newsnight. Kuenssberg’s recent article on the Labour cabinet changes reads like it was written by a spoilt teenager with delusions of grandeur: It’s full of speculation and snide comments, is highly polemical and simply very poorly written http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35258182

It’s Doughty who is the disloyal scumbag. He ought to be deselected if he is so strongly against his own party leadership and the democratic process. The BBC capitalized on his disloyalty to score points against Jeremy Corbyn and Labour as a whole. But then again – Tory cronyism at the top of the BBC does not come as a great surprise. We currently have a Tory government that rewards its friends.

Spare a thought for the people of Leeds. The BBC dumbfucks who manipulated the news ensured that PMQs was not properly reported and that meant Cameron’s refusal to answer Corbyn’s questions about the lack of funding for flood defences in Leeds. Three times Cameron refused to answer whether the Government would fund the flood defence scheme thst is needed in Leeds. None of this was reported by the BBC

This is a very important point and fundamental l why I became so angry and suspected they had been tipped off earlier in the morning what Dave of dirty tactics intended to do ridicule the reshuffle attack the appointment of new Defence Secretary and ignore whatever questions out from the Labour Leader. It was so awful that some of those alongside and behind winced. Jeremy had clearly done his homework regarding his questions which Dirty Dave had no intention of answering.
I even wondered if someone in the PLP had let it be known that Jeremy intended to announce the details of the reshufflle after PMQ but the clique made sure this did not happen by announcing the first sacking. Dirty Dave and his nasties then four Ministerial statements on the first day back which ensured that under pressure Benn ( who performed well) and the other Shadow teams were occupied in order to further thwart the Labour Leader and add to accusation he was experiencing difficulties confusing this with the kind of care and thoroughness Mr Corbyn is known for unlike Dirty and which Blair and Thatcher are famed. In fairness to Gordon his problem was the opposite the inability to make up his mind or to understand the impact of the economic policies of his years using financial group to ensure hus enemy was only able to influence the implementation at the margin. Party politicians cling to manifestoes when it suit their purpose and explain why they do something different when it suits.. Dirty Dave’s main problem has always been the ECC and his belief we need to be in while a significant minority in his PCP do not nor do the majority of the aging party members., He never expected to have an outright majority and was even preparing for Ed Miliband to be PM. Secretly he admires Corbyn but know that his Party comments means he and his friends have to exploit the division between the PLP and the members which grows with every contemptible action of the alternative power seekers, I keep reading that the labour rebels against Corbyn are moderates the very people who agreed with Blair’s decisions to treat the indigenous men and women of Iraq as expendable in his and the USA’s determination to counter the power of China. People like Neil and Kuennsberg know the big picture, the problem is that many of those who make the programmes or help run the political parties are the ambitious young with no understanding of recent history or the reality of party politics.

They are also not reporting the sexual attacks against women across Germany and other countries on New Year’s Eve. Political collusion and cover-ups. It’s so sad to watch Aunty Beeb go down like this. They were a great organisation once, now reduced to begging for scraps at the Tories’ loaded table.